jacinto encounters, monsters, san serafín, World of Lamentations

dream the life you’re most afraid of

san serafin is not really a dungeon, though it looks like one sometimes, but it is really more of a dangerous overworld in which other dungeons can be inserted. an important part of the feel of San Serafin are its most common residents, serafinos, who form a constant, low-grade puzzle that players have to deal with. I have not wanted to blog about it and ruin things, but players usually figure it out within a session anyway, and the fun of it is dealing with the problem, not figuring it out.

there is a Sleeping King, deep beneath the ground, so hateful he was buried alive by his own people, so virtuous he he did not die.

he dreams of a black city, unfolding from the earth like an evil flower, filled with remembrances of his lost kingdom. he dreams the dead to life and dreams the sun out of the sky.

he has dreamed his people into monsters. the Dream is in them and they are of the Dream, it is propagated by their acts and they are sustained by its existence.

serafinos are the people who used to live in San Serafín. now they are the impossible residents of an impossible city, with no mind or power but to endlessly act out the unlogic of their home.


all serafinos obey the following rules strictly:

behave well
Serafinos always act in the way most appropriate for their surroundings. On  the street, they walk aimlessly; in a bar, they drink ancient liquor and pay with corroded coins

punish transgression
Serafinos react with hostility to any breach in ettiquette or order. Stealing, cutting in line, heckling, touching another Serafino, shouting, running, and fighting all upset them, at first attracting their attention and then compelling them to attack. Serafinos can freely  breach etiquette to punish a transgressor, without reprisal from their fellows.

never rest
Serafinos continue a course of action until etiquette forces them to stop. They will dance forever unless a clock strikes twelve, or eat dust in a restaurant until they come to believe it has closed.

obey authority
Serafinos tend to obey orders spoken with conviction and believe claims of high office, but their reprisal for impersonation when they discover it is extraordinarily vicious.

reactions
Serafinos use a modified reaction table. They only make reactions when players have called attention to themselves in some way.

in the city
in San Serafin, there are always 3d6 lesser serafinos wandering the streets or stumbling through buildings nearby.

Lesser Serafino
it is shadowy and indistinct, like a distant figure in a dream or a person you see out of the corner of your eye. if you look closer, you can see the details resolve themselves just a moment after you should have noticed them: it has no face until you wonder why not, its eyes have no color until you notice they’re an indescribable non-shade, stitches force themselves out of the serafino’s clothes once you realize it’s just wearing a smoky black smear.
HD 1
Armor 10 (unarmored)
Speed  ¾ human (spiderclimb, swim)
Morale 12
Alignment Chaotic
Abilities

  • Maul: +1 to hit, 1d6 damage
  • Climb: serafinos do not climb like a human. they just step up onto the wall like it’s another part of the floor and walk straight up it.  
  • Swim: in water, serafinos unravel into something filamentous and black, a bit like a cloud of smoke and a bit like a jellyfish.

Grand Serafino
its looks human, but its shadow roils like smoke behind it and the pavement flexes like a beaten drum beneath its feet. When angered or when fighting, it flickers between shapes: a child, a tiger, a screaming statue, a cloud of butterflies, a column of fire, anything ever dreamed of.

Stats and abilities as djinn, except that it cannot use whirlwind. Grand Serafinos can use Shapechange at will, except that anyone can Save vs Magic to disbelieve it back to its original humanoid form. this is subjective, and the serafino can use Shapechange  again to fool a person who has already disbelieved, so it might appear as a medusa to one person and an ancient red dragon to another.

any serafino that dies leaves behind its possessions, but its body is always small and shriveled, like something that only might have been human, and even then very long ago.

jacinto adventures, classes, garden, is this gonna work, LotFP, monsters, npcs, occult, san serafín

that old time religion

“Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark where he was not sure of his footing, where he might be walking on water and not know it and then suddenly know it and drown.”
 from Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood

Thinking about this post. Also thinking about Mononoke. The standard old school D&D cleric worships an impersonal, benevolent god. That’s an okay model, but I like the idea of deities as more present, dangerous, and visceral. A little more animist, I guess. Clerics can befriend gods, or form grudging alliances with them, or press them into service. Sometimes, clerics have to kill them. In this model, gods are NPCs and spells and adventures in one, and they influence clerics (shamans really, I guess) in direct ways.

Anyways, here’s a sketch of what this would look like:

She rebelled against her masters, so they tied her to a tree out in the scrub and left her there to die. When she finally became too tired to kick away the coyotes, when she had nothing but three days of hunger and three days of thirst, when her will to live exceeded anything her body could do, she swore by the blood in her mouth and then sun in her eyes that there would be a reckoning.

There is a tree in courtyard of the mayor’s house in the village of Segundo. It grows the most remarkable red flowers and draws the most remarkable red butterflies. The mayor ignores them, but every morning he pours a bottle of excellent red wine on the tree’s roots, and girdles its trunk with another red sash. He is a fine man, the nephew of the old lord, so the Segunderos ignore these eccentricities, but they wonder why he would lavish so much attention on a tree while ignoring the fruits of his labor, or why he would grow so fearful when he found out the merchant wouldn’t be bringing any shipments of wine for the second season in a row.

La Dama Roja, Goddess of Blood and Sunshine
AC 16 HD 3+1 MV 90’ (30′) ATK Spear DMG 1d8+1 ST Fighter 3 AL Chaotic
Spells, at will: Light, Command, Cure/Inflict Light Wounds

The true name of La Dama, the one that will let a shaman make a pact with her, is carved into the trunk of the tree in the mayor’s courtyard, beneath the dozens of tattered red sashes. If the shaman botches the pact-making ritual, she will do her best to brutally murder the mayor, who was the man who tied her to the tree all those years ago. If the shaman helps her kill the mayor, her Loyalty will increase by d4. 

If a shaman wishes to extract a favor from a god without making a Loyalty check, they can make it an offering. La Dama accepts only blood. A small task, like casting a 1st level spell, participating in a fight tipped in the Goddess’ advantage, or translating the words of a creature that can’t communicate with humans, might require d6 HP. Major favors, like casting a 5th+ level spell, joining a fight with desperate odds, or revealing a powerful and ancient secret, might require 5d6 HP.

The Goddess of Blood and Sunshine makes a Loyalty check or requires an offering when the shaman violates one her her taboos in front of her, or when the shaman asks her to violate one of her taboos:

  • BEG NO PARDONS
  • SHOW NO MERCY
  • BOW TO NO ONE
jacinto demon, LotFP, monsters, san serafín

care to guess my name


They were the gods of the beasts, but grew decadent and cunning with the passing of time. They fell, finally and irreversibly, when they gave themselves names and rose to walk on two legs. Now, they are rejected by the wild and spurned by civilization. They have retreated to San Serafín where they wage a glacial and mostly invisible war on the dead. 

The greatest of their number is Madama Yaguar, the first beast to hunt and the first being to kill. She is sick now, and will teach the secrets of her illness to the strong


The forms of the devils are confused, they are furred and scaled and feathered and fanged. They hide their shapes in ragged finery and ivory masks and golden wire armatures. 

If defeated or entreated, the may agree to form a pact with an adventurer. To do so, the signatory character must sacrifice 15% of the XP needed to reach the next level. They learn the devil’s true name, and can summon it at any time with 1 turn of effort.

Once summoned, a devil makes a reaction roll. If it doesn’t try to eat everybody, the signatory can ask it for a favor. It might demand a service, a soul, or a burnt offering, depending on its Reaction.

DOMAINS
Signatories can ask a devil to perform a favor pertaining to its domain.

  1. Wealth Devil: Will sell you anything on the standard equipment list for 10 times the original price.
  2. Weather Devil: Will change the weather to anything you wish for one day, as long as it is appropriate for the local climate (so no snowstorms in deserts)
  3. Weapon Devil: Will sell you any standard weapon for 10 times the original price. +1 to damage and +1 to hit for 24 hours.
  4. Desire Devil: has power over a single random MU spell with a spell level of 1d4. It can grant the ability to cast it once to a single person. It can grant the ability to cast more spells by eating scrolls.
  5. Warfare Devil: will fight for you until it fails a Morale/Loyalty check. Loyalty/Morale is 2+signatory’s level. Warfare devils do not fear being outnumbered.
  6. Beauty Devil: Will change the Morale of all hirelings to 11 for a day, but failure means they have become enamored with the beauty devil and will henceforth follow its wishes in all things.
  7. Ascended Devil: Will grant three Wishes. They can be made one at a time or all at once, with any amount of time between them. Once it has granted them all, the pact terminates and it will try to kill you.
  8. Blood Devil: Will make a creature at 0 or fewer HP immune to damage for a day or until they reach 1 or more HP.
  9. Knowledge Devil: Has a 4 in 6 chance of truthfully and correctly answering any yes or no question asked of it.
  10. Truth Devil: Will enforce any oath made in its presence. Should any party break the oath, the Truth Devil will do all in its power to kill them. 

STATS
When in a pact, devils add half their signatory’s level to their HD. They can cast spells as a MU with half as many levels as they have HD. The appearance of all devils is similar, but they have stats as one of the following creatures.

  1. Medusa (can turn into an azure jay)
  2. Immature Red Dragon (can turn into a jaguar)
  3. Earth elemental (can turn into a caiman)
  4. Banshee (can turn into a howler monkey)
  5. Werewolf (can turn into a maned wolf)
  6. Harpy (can turn into a dolphin)
jacinto adventures, afternoon espresso, angels, megadungeon murder mystery, monsters, san serafín, table

XIII

This is kind of an experiment. Every session there is a 1 in 6 chance of one of these things coming up or being mentioned or whatever. It’s a conspiracy generator. Not the best format, but it was fun to write so whatever.

by Dominic Alves, distributed under CC

I
There is a god, and its name is Thirteen. It is the lord of inversion and the architect of misfortune; its clerics wear yellow and hold power over doppelgangers, oozes, and devils. The Constables hunt its worshipers like animals, but there always seems to be more.

by Jerry Kirkhart, distributed under CC

II
There is a society, and nobody knows its name or its members. Everyone who matters has gone to one of their parties–they only invite thirteen people at a time, and it’s terribly difficult to secure an invitation. Sometimes people don’t come back, but that just makes it all the more exciting, doesn’t it?

III
There is a city where nobody goes, a city of sepulchers, a city by the sea. You can’t find it on a map, and no matter how far you travel, you won’t ever reach it. Some priests say the gods cut it out of this world like a tumor, but if you take a certain route, passing through certain cursed doorways and traversing certain cursed crossroads, you will arrive on one of its thirteen grand avenues, which intersect in the center like a spider’s web or a perverse star. The dead hang by cables from the telephone wires.

IV
There is a man by the side of the road, and he is shouting at you. He speaks of an angel with thirteen wings and a hydra with thirteen heads. He says he will be dead soon, but this is a thing that you all must know.

V
You found a book about a crow with thirteen eyes, scattered across its face like any ugly constellation. It is terrible old and utterly malign: a colossal rival of dragons, a gleeful anthropophage, a bearer of curses. It steals children from their parents, raises them and loves them with all its evil heart. They don’t grow up human.

by Anne-Sophie Leens, distributed under CC

VI
There is a syndicate with thirteen captains. They traffic in drugs, slaves, and precious metals; they are undercutting just about every major player in the city. Nobody can figure out who their suppliers are, or where their shipments are coming from, but everyone wants them gone. The Weaver’s Guild has placed a colossal bounty on the heads of their leaders, but it’s only resulted in a lot of dead assassins.

VII
Somebody murdered a Saint of Honey and Salt, carving a thirteen-pointed star into their chest. The local House has promised blood, and rumor has it they’ve had to purge their ranks of spies, though the details are fuzzy on who they were working for.

VIII
This buried and desecrated temple is the home to thirteen warlocks:

  • Gog and Magog, the hateful witch-children, each of which draws magic from the other
  • Illhammer, who casts spells with a mace fashioned from a devil’s femur
  • The Perfect Child of Man, who wears a yellow hood. The emissary of a god-city exiled from this world
  • Ratbelly, the red eyed waif, bound by her own oaths to the Forbidden Hour, which once sat between midnight and 1 a.m
  • Catbelly: the neurasthenic malefic, carried on a silk palanquin by 5 horned skeletons and empowered by a devil of smoke and blue fire
  • Murderboy: he walks on ceilings and weeps black tar; he was raised by a spider the size of a school bus that still sings him to sleep
  • Toothgirl: a creeping obsessive, built a god of neon tubes and rat bones that tells her who to kill
  • Gurn: she can unhinge her jaw like a snake and spit out almost anything she wants; cursed by her mother to be killed by a weapon of her own making.
  • Mammon: everything he does looks awkward and wrong, like a dog walking on its hind legs or a man running on all fours. A centipede lives in his clothes that teaches him the secrets of secret-eating and memory-killing
  • Nadir: wild haired troglodyte who lives at the bottom of a hole, which moves around when nobody’s looking. Sold her soul to a gravity angel, so she can’t pick herself off the ground.
  • Maculata: jelly-fleshed voyeur with a visible skeleton; holds congress with puddings, oozes, and jellies of all sorts.
  • Maastricht: a wretched old man with metal teeth, his pact with Satan makes him nigh omnipotent; his secret weakness is that he can only move when you’re looking at him

IX
There’s a series of thirteen pamphlets everyone’s reading. They make you remember things you’d forgotten, give you advice that makes you feel smart and capable and stronger, they make you forget your own inadequacy and weakness and stupidity, they make you want to find the other pamphlets, but they’re so hard to find and you can’t figure out where they come from. Everyone says something wonderful happens if you read all thirteen.

I’m tired of writing now. I’ll probably write more and I want to find a d13 for this.

jacinto demon, fairy, i am sick, monsters, Pernicious Albion, wonders and wickedness

Personages Seen in the Miserous Hills

Prose is a little extra purple today, but this was fun to write. Adapting my half-assed God of the Earth dungeon for Albion.
 
Countess of Secrets-kept, true Lady of Faerie
Wolves proclaim her arrival and foxes bear her train: the Countess of Secrets-kept, her dress the purple of beaten flesh, her high crown fashioned from black horn. A single red scar mars the pallor of her face, and all who knew or asked whence it came are now ashes.

HD 10 Speed human
Armor none Attack none
Morale 9 Alignment Chaotic

Abilities

  • Command Canine:  All foxes, hounds, and wolves in Albion must obey the Countess, for they sold their service to her long ago. 
  • Fairy-power: As a greater fairy, the Countess can cast Totem/Polymorph Other, Geas/Covenant, Revisitation/Teleport, and Bewitch/Charm Person. She cannot cast more than 10 spells in a day.
  • Lich-craft/Animate Dead:  The Countess’ closest and dearest ally is Lucifer, with whom she plays chess every Sunday. As a birthday present some centuries ago, he gave her the ability to raise the dead, though she only has power over the remains of the damned.

Her servants are three brothers named Mercy-me, Noose-tight, and Lackaday. They are perfectly identical in their hideousness and eloquently rude to all but their mistress. Each has a different, baroque scheme to depose the Countess, claim her title, and curse her house unto thirteen generation as revenge for these long millennia of servitude. They bicker amongst themselves endlessly.

The Countess of Secrets-kept is currently pursuing the God of the Earth for its heart, so that she can make it into a chess pawn–she misplaced her last one, carved from Helen of Troy’s rib.

Too Little Too Late, Demon of the 4th Circle
It changes shape like humans change clothes, but no matter how it looks, it always feels wrong, like a nail pounded into the flesh of the world. Without its magic, Too Little Too Late is as red and slick and slender as a man without skin, its mouth crowded with crocodile teeth than can punch through steel.

HD 9 Speed human
Armor as plate Attack as longsword (claws)
Morale 8 Alignment Chaotic

Abilities

  • Temptation of the Miser: Victim must save vs Magic or have a large, beautifully cut gem worth £100×d10 grow painlessly and harmlessly in their forehead. Removing this gem is excruciatingly painful, horrifically bloody, and invariably fatal.
  • Deception: Too Little Too Late can assume any human appearance it pleases
  • Hell-power:  As a demon, Too Litle Too Late can 9 spells a day from the Diabolism school. It can also assume bodily control over humans by crawling into their mouths, though they are allowed a single Save vs Magic to expel it.

Too Little Too Late hunts the God of the Earth to possess it and build an infernal kingdom from the safety of its monstrous new body.

jacinto monsters, Pernicious Albion

Secret Trash

Three Lore Garbage facts about Albion:

  1. There are two secret cardinal directions in Albion, both orthogonal to the conventional four. Going Deathwise leads one closer to the Hereafters. Going there is generally a one way trip, but travelers can stop at the Sunless Lands, the miserable marches beyond the Lands of the Living where the angels, demons, and vampires make their courts. The opposite direction, Whimwards, leads into the Kingdom of Faerie, ruled by the King of Roses Red and his sprawling, decadent court. 
  2. Death is a physical entity in Albion. It is responsible for ensuring that the deceased transition to the Hereafters properly and employs a vast, sclerotic bureaucracy of psychopomps and demigods to fulfill its duty. Known as the House of Death, it largely does its job, but history is filled with powerful magicians who extended their lives by banishing, imprisoning, or binding the psychopomps sent to collect their souls. Death always wins out in the end, however–neutralizing a psychopomp means that the House will eventually get around to sending something more powerful to find out what happened to one of their agents, and at the top of the hierarchy is Death itself. (Functionally, this means rather than a Death and Dismemberment roll, there’s a Les Petites Morts table that determines which psychopomp is coming to scoop out your soul, and what you can do to stop them)
  3. Hell sent the Infernal Expeditionary Army to occupy Albion centuries ago. It failed utterly, but its leaders decided to stay–the climate was lot better, and they only had an eternity of excruciating punishment to look forward to if they returned. Now their general and her officers pass their time by waging perennial war against the angels the vampire warlords in the Sunless Lands, collecting souls and sowing sin all the while.

Here’s a monster: 
Vestal of Cinder
HD 10 Speed human (hover)
Armor none Attack throw Black Fire (as greataxe, see below)
Morale 12 Alignment Lawful
 
Vestal Virgins who blasphemously immolated themselves in the sacred flames they tended, charred skeletons in pristine white vestments. There are thirteen in all the world, and they serve Vesta Mortua, Goddess of the Cold Hearth. In their freezing temples, they endlessly perform the rituals that sustain the necromantic legacy of fallen Rome.

Vestals of Cinder can cast Necromancy spells as a 10th level magician.

Any flame ignited or tended by a Vestal of Cinder is Black Fire, which sheds cold and dark rather than heat and light. Just as true flame burns the living to death, Black Fire burns the dead back to life, raising them as malevolent undead creatures with the abilities, appearance, and knowledge they had when they lived. 

When a Vestal of Cinder dies, her body reforms in the Black Fires of her home temple the following midnight. These flames can only be extinguished through supreme magical effort–a powerful Angel of Seas or a huge quantity of Clarified Water might do the job.

Inverse Revenant
HD as in life Speed human
Armor as worn Attack as wielded weapon
Morale 12 Alignment Neutral
 
Black Fire is inverse flame, and those burned to life by it share that quality. Inverse revenants retain the memories, abilities, and attributes they possessed in life, and appear as a mirror image of their living selves. Inverse revenants do not retain their personality–they are all malicious, albeit loyal, servants of whoever started the fire that raised them. They speak to each other backwards and will do anything to avoid the sight of their own reflection. 

jacinto angels, clerics, LotFP, monsters, Pernicious Albion, spell

Lawful Awful

The Watchers are secret society of humans who have pledged themselves to the cause of the Grigori. The communicate with each other through coded messages and dreams, arranged by their angelic patrons. Most Watchers are just regular people with eccentric religious views and a casual disregard for the kind of bodily harm their masters tend to cause, but a few have been transformed as a reward for their service.

Soteriomancer
HD 2-10 Speed human
Armor none Attack staff
Morale 10 Alignment Lawful
Magicians who have sworn to aid the Grigori. They are often members of Albion’s occult aristocratic class, keeping their allegiances secret as they sabotage their fellows and excavate sleeping angels.

Soteriomancers function as magicians with levels equal to their HD. They know a number of Spiritualism spells equal to half their level and can expend any prepared spell to cast Refine Corpus instead.

Refine Corpus
The caster transforms a single human within 10 ft into a more virtuous being. The caster can apply half their level to the target’s saving throw if they so choose. This miracle has 7 variations. Soteriomancers acquire a new variation every level in ascending orders. 

  1. Subtly alters the brain structure of the target, preventing them from ever sleeping again. The target may make a Save vs Magic; on a success, they no longer need to sleep anyway. On a failure, they will suffer the effects of sleep deprivation until they go mad and die.
  2. Sublimates the target’s digestive organs into nothing. The target may make a Save vs Magic; on a success, they can subsist purely on aether and no longer need to eat or drink. On a failure, they will die or thirst and starvation during the days to come.
  3. Destroys the ability of the target’s body to regulate its temperature–they no longer produce body heat and cannot sweat or shiver. The target may Save vs Magic; on a success, they are completely untroubled by any temperature a natural climate can produce; on a failure, they die of hypothermia over the next few hours as their body becomes room temperature.
  4. The target’s lungs and associated respiratory organs dissolve into intangible golden dust. The target may make a Save vs Magic; on a success; they no longer need to breath. On a failure, they will quickly suffocate.
  5. The target no longer ages. The target may Save vs Magic; on a success, they may enjoy their new immortality. On a failure, this stasis prevents their body from healing itself–all wounds they suffer become permanent and all damage they take affects their maximum HP
  6. The target becomes perfectly androgynous and biologically sexless. The target may Save vs Magic; on a success, they become immune to Charm spells. On a failure, they henceforth automatically fail all Saves vs Poison/Death.
  7. The target must Save vs Magic or be enthralled by the soteriomancer, pledging themselves to the cause of the Grigori with no thought of previous alliance. They also undergo the seven previous versions of Refine Corpus, one per Turn in ascending order, automatically succeeding each saving throw. On the seventh Turn, they transform into an angel with HD equal to their level rounded to the nearest multiple of 3. 

Lazarene Knight
HD 1-10 Speed human
Armor none Attack sword
Morale 12 Alignment Lawful

from Darkest Dungeon

The body of a great warrior, mummified and possessed by the soul of a particularly virtuous Watcher. They wear winged golden armor, and beneath are wrapped in bandages anointed with myrrh. All Lazarene Knights carry a massive bronze jar and their back, which they use to capture souls and spirits. Knights can be Turned as undead, which is the subject of a number of heated theological debates.

Lazarene Knights can cast Soul Harvest at will. Captured souls are trapped in the Knight’s jar and Charmed/infatuated with the angel that raised the Lazarene Knight from the dead. When encountered, Knights start with d6+1 souls in their jar.

A Knight can expend 1 soul to do any of the following:

  • Send the soul to the Hereafter that creates a pillar of golden fire that deals d6×half HD of the soul
  • Have the soul animate and control a number of HD of undead equal to its own HD. This purges any disease, decay, and corruption from the bodies.
  • Send the soul to possess someone. This functions as the Bewitch/Charm Person spell. 
  • Allow the soul to possess them. This heals the Knight for d6×half HD of the soul, and causes the Knight to speak in first person plural.
jacinto encounters, is this gonna work, monsters, never read balzac

Golems of Goriat

Self-sufficient magical devices constructed by the ancient people of Goriat. In ages past, golems farmed, built, and manufactured for their masters, but the only golems left today are engines of destruction.
 
 Chlorolisk
A vine-wrapped porcelain skeleton, its ribcage packed with dirt and seeded with cursed orchids. Chlorolisks are not sentient, and the formulas inscribed on the insides of their skulls compel them to kill everything they see.
HD 8 Speed human
Armor plate Attack unarmed d8
Morale 12 Alignment Neutral

  • Sow. When a Chlorolisk strikes an enemy with a melee attack, it forces seeds into their flesh. 
  • Effloresce. Chlorolisks can cast Plant Growth at will. Growing seeds embedded in an enemy’s flesh deals d6 damage for every successful Chlorolisk melee attack the target has suffered this combat. 
  • Mindless. Chlorolisks are in a fight or looking for one. Retreat, ambush, or sabotage are beyond them. 

Goliath
A sandstone colossus with a stylized eye inscribed in its sphereical head. Each Goliath contains the soul of an ancient criminal, imparting it with limited intelligence and a tendency to hoard.
HD 10 Speed ½ human
Armor plate Attack flare d20
Morale 10 Alignment Neutral

  • Scry. Goliaths can cast Clairvoyance at will.
  • Flare. Goliaths can produce gouts of brilliant flame from their eye, dealing d20 damage at shortbow range.
  • Greed. Goliaths contain the souls of those executed for theft and graft. The lingering avarice of these ghosts compels Goliaths to any valuables they come across, despite the fact that material wealth is useless to such a creature. 

Hex Vessel
A large clay pot that walks about on four spidery arms, illuminated by a torch-bright blue flame that hovers over its mouth. Hex vessels are animated by the ghosts of insufficiently talented sorcerers, and are most easily persuaded of Goriat’s golems. 
HD 4 Speed 1.5 × human
Armor leather Attack flame d6
Morale 6 Alignment Neutral

  • Birth. Hex vessels are golematric incubators and have a 1 in 6 chance of disgorging an inkling each Round.
  • Cowardice. Hex vessels never participate directly in combat and only fight when cornered.

Inkling
Child sized golems constructed from hexed ink and sublimated shadow.  Though they possess a doglike susceptibility to affection, inklings are also the cruelest of the golems.
HD 2 Speed 1.5 × human, climb
Armor none Attack claws d4
Morale 8 Alignment Neutral

  • Viscous. Inklings can squeeze through any space larger than a coin.
  • Permeable. Inklings take d4 damage per Round in lightless environments as their substance bleeds off into the ambient darkness.

jacinto encounters, LotFP, monsters, Pernicious Albion, table

Albion Encounter Tables

Albion’s wilderness encounter tables use 3d6. I like the distribution on this–the tail ends of the bell curve have scary/useful NPCs, while the middle bits have more common monsters and criminals.

Another trick I’m interested in trying is having monster/NPC behavior tied to the number you encounter. For example, if the Referee determines that the party encounters d6 goblins, a roll of 2 or less means that you meet 2 goblins fleeing from something else on the encounter table, while a roll of 5 or more means they are hauling a little extra treasure after a victory. This lets you vary encounters more without relying in longer tables or lots of extra dice rolling.

3d6 In the windy moors of Albion…

  • 3: The Morrígan (ancient Britonnic war-witch, majordomo of the House of Death, potential warlock signatory)
  • 4: Merchant with 2d6 bodyguards; if there are 9+, they plan on robbing their employer
  • 5: Noble with 2d6 bodyguards; if there are 9+, they are transporting a prisoner
  • 6: d6+3 knights; if there are 7+, they have sworn fealty to the lord of the nearest domain; on a 6-, they are on a mission from a distant domain
  • 7: d6+3 Watcher Cultists
  • 8: Shepherd (armed with a gun) with d6+1 Albion hounds and 3d6 sheep
  • 9: Malkin (enormous, evil cats)
  • 10: 2d6 bandits; if there are 10+, they are hauling £2d100 in trade goods
  • 11: 2d6 wolves; if there are 10+, they are attacking another creature on this table
  • 12: 2d6 Britons; if there are 7+, they are being pursued by constables
  • 13: Spakehound
  • 14: d6 Wights
  • 15: 2d6 Vampires, level equals 13-No. Appearing. Masquerading as (1-Nobles 2-Magician and servants 3-Bandits 4-Knights)
  • 16. 2d6 Werewolves, level equals 13-No. Appearing. Masquerading as (1-Bandits 2-Britons 3-Merchant and bodyguards 4-Hunters)
  • 17. Magician and d6 bodyguards. If there are 4+, the magician intends to use them in a ritual
  • 18. Lady of Joy-forgotten (sybaritic fairy-noble recently banished from her domain by a rival aristocrat)
jacinto amateur hour, classes, clerics, is this gonna work, LotFP, monsters, rituals

propagating my incompetence

Edited the new warlock, but that doesn’t warrant a whole post on it own. I’ve been trying to get this patron system right for over two years, ever since I tried to glue World of Dungeons magic onto LotFP when one of my players cut a deal with The Man With A Clock For A Face.

With aching slowness, I am teaching myself InDesign. Here’s a thing I made for practice. Thinking my post-Albion project will be a monster hunt/pokécrawl.

painting by John Singer Sargent

illustrations by Harry Clarke

pdf is available here